Lilith Saintcrow Quotes & Sayings

Funny, how things became very simple once a man's course was decided. It was the aimlessness of choice that made mischief, among both sidhe and mortals. — Lilith Saintcrow

Chess isn't one of my favorites, it takes a cool calculating hatred to play well, and I'm not good at that. — Lilith Saintcrow

You're my friend, Danny. You understand? There's no debt between friends.
Maybe it's just that the debt gets so high you stop counting it. — Lilith Saintcrow

And ordering me around is exactly the wrong way to make me do what you want. — Lilith Saintcrow

I pulled in a soft breath. My lungs were starving, crying out for air. I lay still, and a cough tickled at the back of my throat. It always happens when you're hiding, a cough, a sneeze, something. It's stupid. The body decides to screw around with you, even though it knows being quiet is the only way it's going to go on living. — Lilith Saintcrow

When a Were moves in like that it means they're offering support. Cat and canine weres are very touch-feely and bird Were have a whole elaborate protocol for brush ad flutter. Snake Weres like to get right up into your aura and breather in your face, all but rubbing noses like Eskimos. And let's not even talk about Werespiders. I shivered. — Lilith Saintcrow

Don't worry about me," I finally said. "Really. I'm more worried about you." And even more worried about where Graves is.
"Are you?" A fey smile lit his face, and I caught my breath. It was a shock to see him look so happy. "Well, then. — Lilith Saintcrow

Most of us, as we undergo the growing up process, do not get what we want or even what we should. We get what we have, and no more, and we find out how to make what we have work for us. — Lilith Saintcrow

What do you say when someone takes on a really bad ass, murdering sucker for you? There just aren't words for that. — Lilith Saintcrow

Graves scooched a little closer to me, and I didn't even think about it. I put my arms around him and hugged. I didn't care if it hurt my arm and my ribs and my neck and pretty much every other part of me, my heart most of all. When you're wrecked, that's the only thing to do, right? Hold onto whatever you can. Hold on hard. — Lilith Saintcrow

And you know, I believed him.
What girl wouldn't? — Lilith Saintcrow

The smell of apple pies didn't quite fill the house, but it was there, a thread under everything else. It was kind of hard to take Christophe seriously when he smelled like baked goods. I wondered if other djampjir smelled like Hostess Twinkies and sniggered to myself. — Lilith Saintcrow

His thumb stroked my cheek. My eyes half-closed. When he spoke next, it was very softly, his voice an almost-physical caress against my whole body. My flesh tightened like a harpstring. I swallowed hard against the wave of liquid heat. How can I possibly be jealous when I know you spent your time grieving for me, Dante? — Lilith Saintcrow

First one's free. — Lilith Saintcrow

Some days, a killing spree seems like a good idea. — Lilith Saintcrow

Now," Graves finally said, "anyone else want to piss me off? Anyone else think this is a goddamn democracy? — Lilith Saintcrow

He wiped away the tears, tenderly, and I forgot to weep as he told me silently everything I always wanted to hear. — Lilith Saintcrow

Are you listening, little bird? — Lilith Saintcrow

My head felt like it was going to crack down the middle, like some demented dwarf was driving glass pins through my brain. — Lilith Saintcrow

I try not to sleep. It disturbs the circles I'm growing under my eyes. — Lilith Saintcrow

What you can't run away from, you have to face — Lilith Saintcrow

Death did not play favorites - He loved all equally.
What you cannot escape, you must fight; what you cannot fight, you must endure .
The god's voice - not quite words, just a thread of meaning laid in my receptive mind - — Lilith Saintcrow

I'm probably the only sixteen-year-old girl in a three hundred mile radius who knows how to distinguish between a poltergeist from an actual ghost (hint: If you can disrupt it with nitric acid, or if it throws new crap at you every time, it's a poltergeist), or how to tell if a medium's real or faking it (poke 'em with a true iron needle). I know the six signs of a good occult store (Number One is the proprietor bolts the door before talking about Real Business) and the four things you never do when you're in a bar with other people who know about the darker side of the world (don't look weak). I know how to access public information and talk my way around clerks in courthouses (a smile and the right clothing will work wonders). I also know how to hack into newspaper files, police reports, and some kinds of government databases (primary rule: Don't get caught. Duh). — Lilith Saintcrow

White and scrubbed, antique brass fixtures and a skylight letting in a flood of sunshine. Wow. You could get a tan standing around in the shower, for Christ's sake. — Lilith Saintcrow

Maybe handling her memory every day for five years had made it fade, like the mortal thing it was. — Lilith Saintcrow

Dryads gathered in knots, hushed, and for once satyrs did not chase them but stood solitary sentinel, horned heads upflung and broad nostrils quivering. Kelpies and selkies hesitated, between horseform and biped shape, their wicked teeth gleaming as they snorted and stamped; among them, night-mares or elfhorses along the shores of the Dreaming Sea - which touches all shores, always - tossed their manes but did not neigh. — Lilith Saintcrow

Goddamn. Well, let's call that an experiment and chalk it up to experience. All hail Jill Kismet the scientist. — Lilith Saintcrow

Next to her, even the prettiest djamphir boys looked gawky. — Lilith Saintcrow

But it's a whole lot easier to keep[secrets] when you've got someone else who knows breathing in the same room. Carrying them alone is like having a huge spiky weight digging into your shoulders and chest, a weight you can't shift even while you're sleeping. — Lilith Saintcrow

Graves: Are you skipping? Off to a good start.
Dru Anderson: I don't want to deal with it today.
Graves: Okay. I know a place to go. You shoot pool? I'm Graves.
Dru Anderson: I know. Dru.
Graves: Dru. You're new. Couple of weeks, right? Welcome to Foley. — Lilith Saintcrow

There was Kir, red hair combed back and That Expression on his sharp face. Even his freckles looked serious. I'd given up wondering how a freckle-faced teenager could look so much like a disapproving granny. — Lilith Saintcrow

So you're a dom, huh? Nice." I stabbed my pancakes again. "Kinky."
"You're the one who ties people up, babe. — Lilith Saintcrow

A long, ear-tearing howl threatened to deafen him, but he was already past the wight as the lanceblade sank in and cut deep, Gallow's body airborne and spinning, his axis almost parallel to the rooftop as the Veil bunched and shivered. Landing, still spinning, the lance a propeller now, the last wight baring its yellowed fangs and hissing. Another curse, this one hurried and malformed, hurtled flapping for Gallow's eyes, but his own spat phrase of the Old Language batted it aside, a dart of moonglow shredding the black wings. Skidding, — Lilith Saintcrow

I guess since the groin is the center of a guy's world, he rarely guesses it isn't the center of yours. — Lilith Saintcrow

Fight scenes are very physical for me. Sometimes I require my own body to move through them before I can tell where a character's likely to feel it. — Lilith Saintcrow

I went to the entrance to the restroom, where the hallway did a sharp bend so nobody could peek into the girls' pee-palace. — Lilith Saintcrow

I don't believe in getting clothes that just look pretty or that'll fall apart - they have to stand up to a lot of abuse. — Lilith Saintcrow

Oh God, Oh God we're all gonna die doesn't really fit the definition of banter, now does it? — Lilith Saintcrow

Almost sure wasn't good enough. Almost sure, in my experience, is the shortest road to oh fuck. — Lilith Saintcrow

Jesus, you've got a death wish."
"Right now I have a bathroom-and-sleep-somewhere safe wish, kid. — Lilith Saintcrow

Really, I scolded myself, you should have known that you'd end up in a stone dungeon with no facilities. That's how these things always end up, isn't it? — Lilith Saintcrow

It's not the type of work you can put on a business card.
I sometimes play the game with myself, though. What would I put on a business card?
Jill Kismet, Exorcist. Maybe on a nice heavy cream-colored card stock, with a good font. Not pretentious, just something tasteful. Garamond, maybe, or Book Antiqua. In bold. Or one of those old-fashioned fonts, but no frilly Edwardian script.
Of course, there's slogans to be taken into account. Jill Kismet, Dealer in Dark Things. Spiritual Exterminator. Slayer of Hell's Minions. — Lilith Saintcrow

There was a hole inside her, and it twisted. — Lilith Saintcrow

Someday, Dante, I will discover how your mind works — Lilith Saintcrow

Hi. I'm Dru Anderson. My father went way-out wack after my mom died and now he travels around hunting things that go bump in the night, killing things you can only find in fairytales and ghost stories. I help him out when I can, but most of the time I'm deadweight, even though I can tell you where anything inhuman in this town is likely to hang out. I'm skipping school because I won't be here in another three months. None of it goddamn well matters. — Lilith Saintcrow

I was feeling safe. Not the kind of safe where you know there are still bad things howling outside the door waiting to get in. No, it was the kind of safe where you sink down in your bed at the end of the day and know you can go to sleep and everything is going to be the same tomorrow. — Lilith Saintcrow

He opened his arm as I slid next to him. I settled against his side, letting out another deep sigh as his familiar heat and aura closed over me. I laid my head on his shoulder and was rewarded with the pressure of his cheek against the top of my head, a subtle caress.
I shut my eyes. It seemed they were leaking again. I had thought I was done with crying. "I thought you were dead," I said for the hundredth time. "I keep thinking you'll vanish, and I'll wake up."
"I told you, while you live, I live." He sounded calmer now, the tension leaving him. He settled back into the seat, and I leaned into him, grateful. "I would not abandon you, Dante. — Lilith Saintcrow

I dislike the thought of damage to you. — Lilith Saintcrow

Lucas went even paler. "Then you're on the track to suicide," he whispered. "Take my advice, Valentine. Run. Run as fast as you can, for as long as you can. Steal whatever bit of life you can. You're already dead. — Lilith Saintcrow

Boys always get the best eyelashes; it's like some kind of cosmic law. And half-breed kids get some kind of extra help there from genetics, too. — Lilith Saintcrow

If a man seeks to drink enough to blind his conscience, tis acquavit or nothing. — Lilith Saintcrow

Christophe, with the careful tone of an adult telling a kid not to pet the nice foaming-rabid pooch. — Lilith Saintcrow

It wasn't easy, but she was used to swallowing. — Lilith Saintcrow

There was a zombie at my back door. Its eyes swung up, and they were blue, the whites already clouding with the egg rot of death. Its jaw a mess of meat and frozen blood; something had eaten half its face. Its fingertips already worn down to bony nubs, scraped against the window. Flesh hung in strips from it's hand, and my stomach turned over hard. Black mist rose at the corners of my vision, and the funny rushing sound in my head sounded like a jet plane taking off. I'd know that zombie anywhere. Even if he was dead and mangled, his eyes were the same. Blue as winter ice, fringed with pale lashes. — Lilith Saintcrow

I turned my face into Japhrimel's shoulder. "You're going to disappear," I said into his coat, not even caring that I knew what it was made of. "Just stay for a moment, just please just for a minute, a second - "
"Dante." His fingers came up, tangled in my already-tangled hair. "I heard you calling me. I tried to answer."
"Just for a few seconds." I buried my face in his coat, his other arm closed around me. I inhaled the smell of cinnamon, of amber musk, the deadly smoky nonphysical fragrance of demons. Filled my lungs with the breath of life. "Before I have to burn this whole fucking place down."
"Be still," he answered. "I am here, I have never left your side. I told you, you will not leave me to
wander the earth alone. — Lilith Saintcrow

To my everlasting relief, he'd also stopped with the starch a few years back . The military made him big on spray starch, but I point-blank refused to touch the stuff after a while. He finally gave up doing it himself, and I manfully restrained myself from pointing out that the world didn't explode when he did. And they say maturity is just for adults. — Lilith Saintcrow

It truly sucks to doubt your friends when you only have one or two of them, I realized. — Lilith Saintcrow

Okay. I'll deal with Benjamin. You're safe, okay? Nothing's gonna happen." His mouth pulled tight against itself. And now I was having some sort of heart attack. Because when he looked at me like that, my chest started to feel like it was turned inside out. "Promise."
And that - the promise, the way he said it with utter certainty - was enough to make me tear up again. — Lilith Saintcrow

Some of the djamphir are so pretty it almost hurts to look at them. And it was hard to look without feeling rumpled and messy in comparison. — Lilith Saintcrow

And now here he was in my kitchen. Smelling like apple pies and looking at me with a direct seriousness that made him even cuter. The bruising spreading up the side of his face had halted, and under it he was very pretty. Not jock-pretty, or the hurtful kind of pretty that tells you a guy is too busy taking care of his royal self to think about you. — Lilith Saintcrow

Why do you eat your own heart? Because, O King, it is bitter, and because it is my heart. — Lilith Saintcrow

I don't even have moderately big breasticles. They just look like - well, nevermind what they look like. At least they stay strapped down when I worm into a sports bra. — Lilith Saintcrow

What you cannot escape, you must fight; what you cannot fight, you must endure. — Lilith Saintcrow

I got a washed out version of Mom's curls and a better copy of Dad's blue eyes, The rest of me, I guess, is up for grabs. Except maybe Gran's nose, but she could have been trying to make me feel better. I'm no prize. Most girls go through a gawky stage, but I'm beginning to think mine will be a lifelong thing. It doesn't bother me too much. Better to be strong than pretty and useless. I'll take a plain girl with her head screwed on right over a cheerleader any day. — Lilith Saintcrow

With twenty-twenty hindsight I could solve every fucking problem, couldn't I? — Lilith Saintcrow

I'm getting really tired of bleeding. Someone stop the world, I want to get off. — Lilith Saintcrow

God and Hell both damn it, — Lilith Saintcrow

The only one," he murmured. His chin dipped a little bit. "You know that, Dru? You're the only person who's ever believed in me. You know what that'll do to a guy?"
What?"I-"
"It makes him want to live up to it. — Lilith Saintcrow

Did she not get it? He'd done everything but hit her on the head and drag her into a cave. — Lilith Saintcrow

He kissed her, over and over, printing blood-flavored kisses on her cheek, her throat, her jaw, her mouth. — Lilith Saintcrow

I just ... knew, the way you know how to breathe or to pull your hand back from a hot stove. — Lilith Saintcrow

I sensed him leaning forward. It's weird to feel someone's attention on you that way, like you're the only thing in the world they're listening to. Most of the time people are distracted, or just thinking about what they're going to say next. — Lilith Saintcrow

Well, duh. You're cuter than she is. He said it like he might say, Grass is green or, Gravity works.
Something warm opened up inside my chest. It was a nice feeling. — Lilith Saintcrow

He'd pulled back a little, just with his lower half, and I was afraid the scorch in my cheeks would set fire to the rest of me, because I an idea why.
Wow. Oh wow. — Lilith Saintcrow

Come take a look at one of the oldest human urges- religion. After all, the only thing that makes us screwier is sex. — Lilith Saintcrow

That's the funny thing about old hurts- they just wait for new heartache to come along and then show up, just as sharp and horrible as the first day you woke up with the world changed all around you. — Lilith Saintcrow

I should start charging uncomfortable thoughts rent. Except what would they pay me in? Probably something even worse. — Lilith Saintcrow

He was the only boy I'd found worth dating in God knows how many schools. I mean, ever since he'd been bitten by a werwulf he'd been rock-steady. The best thing about this totally effed-up situation. — Lilith Saintcrow

It's always difficult to say goodbye, especially when one has spent a long time - literally years, in the case of a series - inside a character or two, suffering and celebrating with them. — Lilith Saintcrow

His shoulder bumped mine again. "Can I ask you something?"
I didn't answer. He was going to ask me anyway. People don't say that if they don't want to pry something out of you. — Lilith Saintcrow

I have set you as a seal upon my heart; I will not return to Hell. — Lilith Saintcrow

It was stealing her breath, imbecile. Go get a towel. -Christophe, Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow — Lilith Saintcrow

His eyebrows drew together. He was perilously close to unibrow; I guess nobody had held him down and administered a good plucking to the caterpillar climbing across his forehead. — Lilith Saintcrow

Sometimes, as much as writing saves one's own life, you cannot imagine how it will save another's. This is another reason why it is important to do the work, over and over again. It is food, the kind a soul needs. — Lilith Saintcrow

I will do anything for you, just don't go anywhere. Just don't leave. Stand there and smile at me, and I'll do anything you want. — Lilith Saintcrow

Unwinter did not wind his Horn or glance back. He did not lift an armored hand to summon his knights. He did not command them to follow. And yet. The whisper became a rustle, the rustle deepened to a throbbing, the throbbing swelled into a roar. The highborn fullbloods of Unwinter, pale and wasted, sallied forth clasped in their own black armor, riding by two and three on the nightmare mounts enticed from the Dreaming Sea's foaming edge. — Lilith Saintcrow

His eyes were green chips of flame, and the growl was so thick it blurred the air around him, the sound of a very pissed off skinchanger. — Lilith Saintcrow

Hearing wulfen howl is ... well, it's horrible. The sound is glassy, hovering at the upper ranges of hearing, and it's full of paws on snow and running with the icy wind hitting the back of your throat like stares. Underneath the glassy edge is the song of flesh ripped apart, the sweetness of hot blood, and the savagery of crunching bones with sharp teeth.
The worst part is how it climbs into your brain, pressing itself like a hard sharpness into the soft folds, and drags open the doors socialization slams shut to keep the howling ravening thing down inside down and tame.
The thing on four clawed legs that lives in all of us. — Lilith Saintcrow

First you find out what you have , Dad would say. Then you figure out how to make it work for what you need, 'cause you don't get what you want. You get just what you have and no more. — Lilith Saintcrow

No matter how much time goes by, missing someone never gets any better. You just learn to work around it. — Lilith Saintcrow

He laughed. The laugh could strip the skin off an elephant in seconds. — Lilith Saintcrow

Graves: It's going to snow.
Dru Anderson: Thanks for the warning.
Graves: Hey, no problem. First one's free. — Lilith Saintcrow

If something is visceral and unsettling for me, my job is to not look away, not to punk out. Sometimes the dark things come from places inside me, experiences I've had, that need to be transformed. — Lilith Saintcrow

I wondered what I'd end up looking like once I bloomed. I couldn't even guess. If I had to be stuck in my own skinny, gawky, coltish body forever ... well. It probably wouldn't be so bad.
I wouldn't mind a little more in the chest, though. But wild horses wouldn't drag that out of me. Ever. — Lilith Saintcrow

Can I ... I mean, do you mind if I sleep up here? If you don't, I, um, understand. I just - " "Yes." The word bolted out of me. "Yes, please. Maybe I'll be able to sleep if you're here. — Lilith Saintcrow

I've never been in a single accident - basic precognition takes care of that - and the cops all know my car well enough to leave me alone when I'm bending the laws of physics and traffic to get somewhere. — Lilith Saintcrow

Zombies smell worse than anything you can imagine if you haven't been hunting things on the dark side of the world. It's a ripe, gassy odour, like rotting eggs and meat gone bad, crawling blind with maggots. It's road kill and decayed food and body odour all rolled into one package and tied up with puke. — Lilith Saintcrow

As much as I devoured comics, I read non-graphic books exponentially more, so I'm not sure I can credit or blame them. Comics, however, taught me a lot about what makes a story arc work and how to bring a story to its natural resting place between issues. — Lilith Saintcrow

His smell - the scent of a demon, cinnamon incense, amber musk - wrapped around me, filled my lungs. I felt like I could breathe again, without every breath being tainted by the stench of dying cells. The smell of him seemed to coat my abused insides with peace, and flow down into the middle of my body to spread through my veins. I filled my lungs again. While I could, before what was undoubtedly a hallucination vanished. — Lilith Saintcrow

Richelle Mead delivers sexy action and tongue-in-cheek hellish humor-if damnation is this fun, sign me up! — Lilith Saintcrow